Brand Value Co-Creation in Social Media Context

Abstract

Social media became an important marketing platform for brands in their relationship marketing with customers that empowers and transforms social media users from passive information consumers to active brand content creators and thus participating in brand value co-creation process. Brand co-creation is a competitive and brand advantage for companies. The term co-creation originates from co-production with a focus on product, value and brand while brand value co-creation occurs when customers and suppliers collaborate in co-ideation, co-design, and co-development of new products. Brand value co-creation process is a continuous process in which the company shares control with its stakeholders, including consumers, whereby in that process of sharing and customer engagement, the value of the brand increase. In the context of social media, brand value increase when members of an online brand community interact and engage in community activities and share their own brand experience with other members. This paper focuses on analyzing the existing scientific literature in the field of brand value co-creation having in mind the characteristics of the process from a digital aspect and social media context. From the comprehensive analysis of past research, we can conclude that companies need to invest significant resources in building long-term relationships with consumers given the fact that transparency, trust, and interactivity are defined as some of the main factors that motivate consumers to get involved in the co-creation process.